As the impending snafu gathers steam, Vice President Sara Duterte finds herself on the receiving end. Wasting no time, former President Rodrigo Duterte promptly constitutes himself into a formidable wrecking crew on the un-mistaken belief that he still enjoys clout in the whole of society — not the least the "praetorian elites" in the military, police and uniformed services.

Just when anyone in his right mind should have considered the current President's imprimatur, when he said: "I don't want Duterte impeached," the rumor mill is blazing with noise following the filing of a House resolution to initiate impeachment proceedings against VP Sara, concurrently secretary of the Department of Education. 

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives has taken cognizance of House Bill 1477 urging the government to cooperate with the International Criminal Court, something that if given due course will subject DU30 to a degree of culpability. 

There are oppositors to the move to impeach VP Sara as there are to allowing the ICC drug war probe against former president DU30. But Confucius says, viz.: "He who catches two rabbits, catches neither." Whatever shall be the final shape of these developments, it puts both the daughter and the father on guard, on the defensive, on a perfidious endgame.

In a quick effort to probably navigate a more balanced view, it can be argued that we have state institutions firmly in place that are best not seriously violated or transgressed. Why can't we regard elected public officials as having a mandate from heaven?

This simply means as Confucius's famous disciple Mengzi used to say, viz.: "Heaven sees through the people's seeing, Heaven hears through the people's hearing." In other words, the people, in this case the electorate, are the "masters of the deities."

If either Sara or DU30 is held to account, or both, these two power-holders in our body polity still have the Filipino people rallying behind them. Be warned that the people cannot be excluded from the political equation. To do so is likened to what a famous prime minister in Athens, Zichan, described as "obstructing the river; when it overwhelms the dam, more people will be hurt."

A few thoughts could be very disturbing.